Why Colo Data Maintenance Trumps In-House IT Infrastructure

In this age, when technology is expanding rapidly, IT teams must try to support and maintain new requirements such as big data, social computing, cloud and 24 hour connectivity, while managing their space requirements, maintaining storage and legacy systems.

While several data center management options are available, IT departments should learn that there isn’t one deployment to fit all their needs. As the demand for capacity continues to grow, it is more important than ever to make your investments count by adopting the right data and server maintenance strategy.

Relying on in-house IT resources

Despite the options of cloud computing and managed data maintenance, a majority of mid-sized companies in the US and UK invest more than half (56 percent) of their precious time every month for in-house management services and troubleshooting, reducing the amount of time spent on other important services to 28 percent.

The perspective is that businesses are continuing to invest in in-house IT infrastructure premises to an extent where managing in-house servers is becoming a hassle. The major problems regarding this form of management involve the responsible staff to be available 24/7, the expense of installing new servers, and maintaining expensive hardware.

Though the idea of maintaining your own systems, managing your own services, and installing your own hardware seems like a feasible, cost effective option, this approach has various hidden drawbacks. For example, if employees trained in managing internal IT premises leave the company, you could find it difficult to pick up critical IT tasks and ensuring continuity.

Also, hosting and managing data resources within the company requires purchase of expensive equipment and hardware on a frequent basis. The strategy could also lead to surprising investments such as bringing maintenance vendors; it may not lead to stable recurring costs as thought initially. Further, maintaining in house data premises require investment in peripheral infrastructure including investment in electrical equipment, power distribution and cooling.

The cost-friendly, scalable approach

Opting for a colocation service could be a viable strategy that allows companies to outsource the peripheral costs as well as other data maintenance tasks to another company. Service providers will usually offer you space in a data center, cooling, security, supplying network bandwidth and creation of backups to run and maintain IT premises.

Such services are usually available for a monthly fee on a contract basis. The customer is also able to see the facility in physical presence and call for installation of new equipment when required, which provides a level of control to comply with regulatory maintenance guidelines. It means that the company is the owner of the equipment and is able to control the density of its premises. Another perk is faster deployments and equipment installations, since the company is usually given space inside a running facility with essentials installed.

In-house IT management can also lead to monitoring costs, especially when new servers are deployed. Colocation includes managed and monitoring solutions, so businesses should look for a service provider offering all the options for reducing the cost associated with hiring external teams. Reliable service providers would also let you designate certain tasks to them while you maintain control over some of the tasks.

The bottom line is that organizations need to evaluate their storage needs and overhead capacity and augment their data and IT maintenance with outside resources to create a strategy that gives them control over resources at a reasonable cost.

Young Upstarts is a business and technology blog that champions new ideas, innovation and entrepreneurship. It focuses on highlighting young people and small businesses, celebrating their vision and role in changing the world with their ideas, products and services.